“DeSmogBlog.com appears to be the main source of allegations that 'FrackNation' was industry-funded,” wrote the Post. “DeSmogBlog claims connections between [film Co-Director Phelim] McAleer and conservative groups, industry groups help[ing] promote the film after its was made, and the fact that McAleer directed an industry-funded documentary in the past, as proof that 'FrackNation' is cut from the same cloth.”

A LOW-PROFILE funding organisation acting as a middleman for wealthy conservative businesspeople has been quietly backing climate denial campaigns across the US.

The Virginia-based Donors Capital Fund and its partner organisation Donors Trust has been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups blocking attempts to limit greenhouse gas pollution and undermining climate science.

Yet the structure of the funds allows the identities of donors and the existence of any vested interests to remain hidden from public view.

Step aside the fakery of “hide the decline”. Say hello to “hide the deniers”.

During the 2009 unlawful release of the private emails of climate scientists, the phrase “hide the decline” became a catch cry for the denial industry as it tried to convince the world that global warming was some kind of hoax.

Sceptics claimed it was evidence scientists were trying to manufacture global temperature records. In fact, Professor Jones's email said nothing of the sort.

Jones, as he explained to many, including the BBC, was referring to data taken from tree rings that, up to the 1960s, had correlated well with global temperatures.

But “removing the incorrect impression given by tree rings that temperatures… were not rising”, as Jones explained, just didn’t have the same ring to it as “hide the decline”.

The most high profile case involving climate sceptics since that non-scandal of “Climategate” is the ongoing unmasking (or for some, confirmation) of the methods the free-market Heartland Institute think-tank deploys to confuse the public about the dangers of fossil fuel emissions.

But the case also gives an insight into how Heartland and other ideologically aligned groups gather their funding while preserving the identity of their wealthy backers.

UPDATE: the Calgary screening of Not Evil Just Wrong was today and nobody showed up - seems even in the oil patch they’re not interested.

We sent this out to our Canadian media distribution list. Will be interesting to see if the journalists who cover this Not Evil Just Wrong film ask the tough questions.

Here’s the release we put out:

The Fraser Institute has announced its support of a new film called Not Evil Just Wrong, which denies the realities of human-caused climate change. The producers of the film and the Fraser Institute must come clean on their motivations.

This isn’t the first time the producers of the film Not Evil Just Wrong have pushed out a pro-industry propaganda film. Their last effort was a pro-coal mining film called Mine Your Own Business,billed as a portrayal of the dark side of environmentalism and its campaign to halt mining development in third world countries.

It was later revealed that MineYour Own Business was sponsored by Gabriel Resources, a Canadian mining company that was attempting to set up a gold strip mine in the Romanian village that was the subject of the film.

The Fraser Institute, an industry-backed think tank based in Vancouver, BC, is promoting the debut of the film, apparently as part of an ongoing campaign to lobby against action on climate change. (The Institute had sponsored cross-Canada tours by U.K. contrarians Nigel Lawson and Christopher Monckton within the last two weeks.)

This also tracks with a longer record of climate change contrarianism on the Institute’s behalf. It has frequently promoted speakers who deny or minimize the likely effects of climate change, and it sponsored a major attack on the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Although not forthcoming about the source of its funding, the Institute is also known to be a frequent recipient of grants from the fossil fuel industry. For instance, they have received $120,000 from oil giant ExxonMobil for work on climate change. The Fraser Institute has often called on government to increase openness and transparency – whether of Labour Relations Boards, Hospitals, or Schools - so such transparency should also be followed by the Fraser Institute.

Anti-activists: “Real grassroots; not Astroturf”

Wandering through New York in the early part of Climate Week, climate activists were interrupted periodically by forceful protesters assuring us that climate change is not a scientific reality, it’s a wild-eyed plot by the dastardly Al Gore and his minions to trick us into wrecking the (Exxon?) economy.

When questioned as to whom was funding the most prominent of these protests (in front of the NY Public Library immediately before the opening ceremony), a well-dressed, 30-something pamphleteer said, “We are. We’re real grasroots; not Astroturf.”

This sounds exactly like a guilty conscience. It also sounds, in the vernacular, like bullshit.

There was a small pro-coal rally held in Washington, DC on Monday and the National Wildlife Federation was able to catch snippets of one of the pro-coal keeners talking to the media. The rally was organized by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) as a counter to the 2,000 youth who held a massive rally demanding action on climate change on the same day.

Word on the street is that the 20 or so who rallied in support of coal were mainly CEI staffers, in fact when one of the coal supporters was asked why they were there, his response was, “I don’t know I’m just an intern.”

The woman in the video below is Ann McElhinney, a British filmaker touting her most recent work “Not Evil Just Wrong.”

To give you an idea where McElhiney is coming from, her last film project was called “Mine Your Own Business” which according to the Wikipedia entry “investigate[d] controversial proposed mining projects in impoverished villages.” The film, “portrays western environmentalists as wealthy elites who are working counter to the interests of the local people.”

The pro-mining film was financed by a Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources Ltd., which is the same foreign corporation that at the time was looking to develop Roşia Montană as an open pit gold mine.

So a leap from pro-mining to pro-coal to arguing that CO2 is good for us wasn’t a hard one for Ms. McElhinney.

Here’s a partial transcript:

“I’ve been around this country making our film and people are driving their white cars… snow white, so if you look at this idea of black stuff coming out, it’s not. C02 is not dangerous. C02 is what you push into greenhouses to make things grow this is a good thing, you know.”

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.